Hill on the Hill: So Far, So Good
New York Post 12/16/01 Vincent (I'm a Clinton Stooge) Morris
December 16, 2001 -- WASHINGTON - About this time last year, Hillary Rodham
Clinton was mired in a swamp of stories about missing furniture, ill-advised
pardons, influence trading and even her own flat hair. But when the Senate
adjourns this week - ending Clinton's first year as New York's junior senator
- the much-criticized former first lady will head home for the holidays knowing
she has worked her way back onto solid ground.
Her young congressional career has taken a remarkable turn for the better
from the outlook Clinton faced at her inauguration on Jan. 3. Her work ethic
and understanding of her job have earned her praise from many quarters - and
both sides of the aisle.
Like many on Capitol Hill, Clinton closed her Senate year primarily coping with the fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. And it is her efforts in securing aid to rebuild New York that have left a strong and lasting impression among her colleagues.
"I'd make her my cleanup hitter," said Sen. Harry Reid, the soft-spoken but powerful No. 2 Democrat in the Senate.
"She's articulate, has good sense, and she's a team player."
Republicans, including avowed opponents of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also credit Hillary with a solid start in the Senate.
"We obviously disagree most of the time," said Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho). "But she's had a successful year. It appears that she knows her job and does it well."
Clinton became the first first lady to serve in the Senate when she was voted in by New Yorkers with a 54 percent share of the vote over Republican rival Rick Lazio's 46 percent.
As she paused last week to reflect on her historic first year, Clinton said she never had expected to become so close with so many GOP senators.
"It's been easier than I expected because I genuinely have positive feelings about many of my colleagues," said Clinton, who revealed she meets almost weekly for private prayer sessions with mostly Republican colleagues.
Despite rubbing shoulders almost daily with right-wing members that have long hunted those from the Clinton clan, Hillary says she holds no grudges.
"I'm a very forward-looking person. Life is short. If you look back and get mired in the past, you can't move forward," she said.
In the tradition-bound Senate, freshmen lawmakers typically content themselves with learning their way around and getting to know all their colleagues in the first 12 months of their six-year terms.
After eight years in the White House, Clinton skipped that and went straight to business.
Her worksheet over the past 12 months shows winning a passage of amendments on President Bush's education legislation that would recruit and retain more teachers and principals. She also wisely climbed aboard a successful campaign-finance bill and won changes to a bankruptcy bill and determinedly killed the Bush appointment of Mary Sheila Gall to run the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
But many of Clinton's goals remain unmet. She still seeks greater economic development for upstate New York, a ban on racial profiling, a nursing recruitment bill, federal security at nuclear power plants and new health coverage for kids.
"This year has been a tremendous challenge, but I intend to work as hard as I can for the people of New York in the rest of my term," she said.
In her first 12 months, Clinton also has not been afraid to reach out to the GOP, cutting deals with conservative members and directing her fire at Bush - not Republican senators.
But Clinton's best move over the past year may have been one she made at the very start.
She hired quality staff packed with White House veterans and others who worked for her as first lady. The strategy could have backfired if her appointments had proved to be payoffs for old friends. But that's not been the case.
Instead, Clinton's staff of 35 has been widely praised for its knowledge of the executive branch of government and extensive contacts. Clinton also has been able to tap former Clinton administration officials to help her direct aid to New York.
It's been a hardworking team approach that has made any comments about hair now seem so irrelevant and passé.
HENCH adds: "It's been a hardworking TEAM approach that has made any comments about hair now seem so irrelevant and passé." That means she can't do anything herself, but relies on lackies to do it for her. "Clinton's staff of 35 .." Or, about 5 times as many staffers as other first-term Senators. This piece is such a pantload, let's just revisit the FACTS:
A FEW OF HILLARY CLINTON'S GREATEST HITS
In the late 1970s, the Clintons and McDougals buy land in the Ozarks with mostly borrowed funds. The Clintons get 50% interest with no cash down. The plot, known as Whitewater, is fifty miles from the nearest grocery store. The Washington Post will report later that some purchasers of lots, many of them retirees, "put up houses or cabins, others slept in vans or tents, hoping to be able to live off the land." HRC writes Jim McDougal, "If Reagonomics works at all, Whitewater could become the Western Hemisphere's Mecca." More than half of the purchasers will lose their plots thanks to the sleazy form of financing used.
The McDougals will be among a number of close HRC's friends and business associates who will end up in jail. Others include her law partner Webster Hubbell and financial middle man David Hale.
Two months after commencing the Whitewater scam, Hillary Clinton invests $1,000 in cattle futures. Within a few days she has a $5,000 profit. Before bailing out she earns nearly $100,000 on her investment. Many years later, several economists will calculate that the chances of earning such returns legally were one in 250 million.
Hillary Clinton makes a $44,000 profit on a $2,000 investment in a cellular phone franchise deal that involves taking advantage of the FCC's preference for locals, minorities and women. The franchise is almost immediately flipped to the cellular giant, McCaw.
Jim McDougal tries to prevent state agencies from shutting down his S&L, which has been providing cash for the Whitewater operation. According to the Washington Times, Ms. Clinton is put on a $2000 a month retainer by the S&L. Ms. Clinton will later claim not to have received any retainer nor to have been deeply involved with Madison.
During the 1992 campaign, Hillary Clinton defends her role in the Madison Guarantee S&L scandal by saying, "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas. But what I decided to do was pursue my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life." Forgotten, however, is what inspired this homily: accusations that Ms. Clinton had represented Whitewater business partner Jim McDougal's S&L before her husband's government. Here's what the New York Times reported on March 17, 1992: "Hillary Clinton said today that she did not earn 'a penny' from state business conducted by her Little Rock law firm and that she never intervened with state regulators on behalf of a failed Arkansas savings and loan association. . . "
Records will show that she did, in fact, represent Madison before the state securities department. After the revelation, she says, "For goodness sakes, you can't be a lawyer if you don't represent banks."
Susan McDougal recalls Ms. Clinton coming in and drumming up the business. Ms. McDougal tells the Washington Post: "The problem was finances, her finances." The Washington Times quotes an unnamed Clinton business associate who claims the governor used to "jog over to McDougal's office about once a month to pick up the [retainer] check for his wife." Jim McDougal's version of the story, according to the LA Times, is that Clinton asked him to throw some legal work his wife's way to help the Clintons out of a financial crunch: "I hired Hillary because Bill came in whimpering that they needed help."
Hillary Clinton writes Jim McDougal enclosing a power of attorney for him to sign "authorizing me to act on your behalf with respect to matters concerning Whitewater Development Corporation." Another power of attorney is enclosed for Susan McDougal. The power of attorney includes the right to endorse, sign and execute "checks, notes, deeds, agreements, certificates, receipts or any other instruments in writing of all matters related to Whitewater Development Corporation." This letter, uncovered in 1993 by Jerry Seper of the Washington Times, directly contradicts the claim of the Clintons that they were "passive shareholders" in Whitewater.
From a 1996 Chicago Tribune editorial: "The legal issues will sort themselves out in time. But one thing has become all too clear. Bill and Hillary Clinton and their aides have made a concerted effort to deceive official investigators and the American public with half truths and outright lies . . . It's not clear what the Clintons want to conceal, but it's clear that they have made extraordinary efforts to do so."
The American Spectator reports in 1996 that on her Asian tour, Hillary Clinton told New Zealand television that she had been named after Sir Edmund Hillary. Sir Edmund, however, was an unknown beekeeper the year of Mrs. Clinton's birth.
The Spectator also reports that HRC served on the board of a corporation about which serious questions have been raised concerning its role in the pre-Gulf War arms pipeline to Iraq.
A drug dealer donates $20,000 to the DNC, attends a Christmas reception hosted by Hillary Clinton, has his photo taken with the Clintons and Al Gore and then -- three weeks later -- is arrested for smuggling 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States. It should have come as no surprise to anyone involved. After all, Jorge Cabrera had already served two prison sentences -- one for trying to bribe a grand jury witness and the other for filing a false income tax return. Later he will be back in the news when a businessman pleads guilty to laundering $3.5 million for Cabrera between 1986 and 1996.
"I see the White House is like a subway -- you have to put in coins to open the gates." -- Clinton contributor Johnny Chung talking about the $50,000 he gave Hillary Clinton's top aide while seeking VIP treatment at the White House.
Spilling some of the beans on her "close friend" Ron Brown, Nolanda Hill tells Prime Time Live that Brown used drugs while Commerce Secretary and considered taking a big payoff from Vietnam to get trade restrictions lifted but dropped the idea when he got a tip that FBI was on the case. Hill also says that Brown thought it was Hillary who placed John Huang in a Commerce Department job. Huang left the Lippo Group -- with a golden parachute of around $800,000 -- to work for Commerce. Brown orders a top secret clearance for Huang. While at Commerce, Huang visits the White House about 70 times, is briefed 37 times by the CIA, views about 500 intelligence reports, and makes 281 calls to Lippo banks.
A federal judge issues a fine for a quarter million dollars because, "The Executive Branch of the government, working in tandem, was dishonest with this court." At issue is the composition of Hillary Clinton's health task force, a body stacked with those from the medical industry who would gain most from its faux reforms.
Number of times Hillary Clinton says "I don't recall" or its equivalent in a statement to a House investigating committee: 50. Number of paragraphs in this statement: 42
Starr decides not to pursue the FBI file matter after an investigation that included a nine-minute interview with HRC over tea and coffee. FBI Director Louis Freeh calls the handling of the FBI tapes an "egregious violation of privacy . . . without justification."
"Mr. Starr also botched the investigation into the White House's illicit use of confidential FBI files on 900 Republican opponents. He used FBI agents to probe misconduct involving the FBI itself. Needless to say, they came up empty handed. A civil suit on behalf of the victims has since uncovered evidence that the purloined files were part of a campaign of political espionage ordered by Hillary Clinton herself. The dirt in the files, including raw data on congressional leaders, was fed into computers.
Presumably it was later used for blackmail, or fed to media surrogates for the systematic smearing of Republicans." -- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, London Telegraph.
After quitting the Justice Department and before going to jail, Hubbell is a busy man. He meets with Hillary Clinton, and follows up by getting together with major scandal figures John Huang, James Riady, and Ng Lapseng. Riady and Huang go to the White House every day from June 21 to June 25, 1994 according to White House records. Hubbell has breakfast and lunch with Riady on June 23. Four days later -- and one week after Hubbell's meeting with Hillary -- the Hong Kong Chinese Bank, jointly owned by Lippo and the Chinese intelligence services, send $100,000 to Hubbell.
"Through discovery in its civil lawsuit against the Clinton Commerce Department, Judicial Watch also has found evidence that President Clinton condoned and participated in a scheme, conceived by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and approved by the President, to sell seats on U.S. Department of Commerce trade missions in exchange for political contributions. ~~~ In addition to the illegal sale of taxpayer financed services, such as seats on trade missions, for political contributions, the President and Mrs. Clinton have illegally solicited and received monies directly from private citizens and others. The creation and use of legal defense funds is not only prohibited under federal law, but they have proved to be a means whereby lobbyists, influence peddlers and foreign powers have tried to influence the Administration, contrary to U.S. national security interests. In sum, Judicial Watch has uncovered a pattern of conduct by this President and his agents that indicates he has run, in effect, a criminal enterprise from the White House to obtain and maintain hold on the Office of the President of the United States. Indeed, he is likely in violation of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). " -- Judicial Watch
"Communist Party cadres should study the speeches of Hillary Clinton because she offers a very good example of the skills of propaganda. Her sentences are short and stimulating. That's why she gets a lot of applause. But Chinese people have a habit of giving long speeches in which the sentences are long and tedious." -- Yu Quanyu, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Studies, in Ideological and Political Work Studies.
Former White House FBI agent Gary Aldrich reports that Hillary Clinton told the Secret Service agents in public to "stay the fuck back, stay the fuck away from me! Don't come within ten yards of me or else!" When her guards have argued with her, she had said, "Just fucking do as I say, okay?"
Hillary Clinton and David Watkins move to oust the White House travel office in favor of World Wide Travel, Clinton's source of $1 million in fly-now- pay-later campaign trips. The White House fires seven long-term employees for alleged mismanagement and kickbacks. The director, Billy Dale, charged with embezzlement in the HRC-organized frame-up, will be acquitted in less than two hours by the jury.
White House-assigned FBI agent Gary Aldrich agrees to help trim the Christmas tree in the Blue Room. Aldrich is surprised to find a small clay ornament of 12-lords-aleaping. Among the things that were aleaping on the 12 lords are their erections. Also provided by Hillary Clinton and her staff: ornaments made of drug paraphernalia such as syringes and roach clips, three French hens in a menage á trois, two turtle doves fornicating, five golden rings attached to a gingerbread man's ear, nipple, belly button, nose, and penis.
Hillary Clinton's attempts to conceal the fact that she had $120,000 of editorial help in preparing a book-like substance.
Billing records documenting HRC's work on the Castle Grande development scam are discovered in the family quarters of the White House. HRC says she has no idea how they got there.
Judicial Watch sues Hillary Clinton in a $90 million lawsuit on behalf of the 900 persons whose FBI files were taken by the White House. She is also a defendant in a shareholder suit filed against Loral and others over the sale of slots on public trade missions. The FBI files case is expected to reach trial next year.
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